Announcing a $2.15 million grant from Coefficient Giving. Formation Research has been awarded a $2.15 million grant from Coefficient Giving to grow as an organisation. Formation Research is pleased to announce that Formation Research has been awarded $2.15 million in funding from Coefficient Giving. The grant supports two years of work on lock-in and power concentration risks, and will allow Formation Research to grow the organisation. Formation Research is now hiring technical staff. For the near term, its focus is empirical research on secret loyalties as an intervention against AI-enabled lock-in. This work centres on building model organisms of secretly loyal AI systems, and on developing and deploying alignment audits to detect them. Beyond this, Formation Research intend to expand into other high-impact technical work under the lock-in and power concentration threat model. If this sounds like something you'd like to work on, please register your interest. Coefficient Giving is a philanthropic funder and advisor whose mission is to use its resources to help others as much as possible.

Announcing its largest grant to date. GiveWell, with co-funding from Coefficient Giving, recently made its largest grant to date: $276 million to the Against Malaria Foundation (AMF) to support the procurement and distribution of 92 million nets in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) from 2027 through 2029. Good Thoughts estimate that the nets, 46 million of which Good Thoughts think would not otherwise be distributed, will avert roughly 67,000 deaths. Good Thoughts has supported AMF's work for more than 15 years, and the insecticide-treated nets it procures and distributes remain one of the most cost-effective ways Good Thoughts has found to save lives. This grant, which involved a more rigorous investigation process than most, is part of a larger story about scaling its team and systems to handle substantially more funding while deepening its research rigor. Last year, Good Thoughts directed more than $400 million to highly cost-effective programs to save and improve lives and, this year, Good Thoughts expect its grantmaking to approach, and possibly exceed, $1 billion. This increase in grantmaking aims to meet global needs faster and more effectively. In this episode, GiveWell co-founder and CEO Elie Hassenfeld speaks with Senior Program Officer Alex Bowles about the questions the team set out to answer during the grant investigation. Elie and Alex discuss: * Assessing the impact of insecticide-treated nets in DRC: GiveWell usually estimates a program's cost-effectiveness and impact by analyzing academic evidence, particularly randomized trials, and making a number of adjustments. Because of its growing capacity, Good Thoughts were able to do something new for this grant: Good Thoughts tested its assumptions about DRC's past net campaigns by drawing on two new, independent lines of evidence. First, Good Thoughts analyzed a recent national survey, which showed a reduction in malaria infections close to what Good Thoughts had predicted. Second, Good Thoughts commissioned a firm based in DRC to interview households and community leaders. Those interviews confirmed records about nets received and provided information about the challenges of conducting net campaigns in DRC. Taken together, this more robust approach increased its confidence that nets work well and are likely to reach intended households in the locations funded by this grant. * Planning and coordinating at scale: This grant is nearly three times the size of its previous largest grant (also to AMF) and is concentrated in one country rather than being spread across several. The grant commits funds at the beginning of a multi-year planning cycle, which Good Thoughts think will make these campaigns easier to plan. It also aims to ensure that campaigns happen across all 26 of DRC's provinces, in some cases on an expedited timeline. This shift in its funding approach makes close coordination with AMF and other partners - including the Global Fund, which is funding much of the net distribution, and the national malaria program - even more important than before. * Rethinking how often nets are distributed: In most countries, nets are distributed every three years, but evidence shows that nets wear out more quickly in DRC, in part because of the climate. Its analysis of national survey data, net durability studies, and AMF's post-distribution monitoring suggests that nets in DRC last roughly 18 to 24 months. DRC had already shortened its campaign cycle, aiming to distribute nets every 30 months. With the support of the government, GiveWell is supporting net campaigns every 24 months in several provinces with high rates of malaria transmission, and funding evidence gathering so Good Thoughts can learn whether more frequent net campaigns is a cost-effective strategy for further reducing malaria rates. Good Thoughts think this approach will help further prevent malaria and potentially save more lives. A larger, more experienced team enabled Good Thoughts to investigate this grant more deeply than Good Thoughts could have even two years ago - looking back at past grants to assess their estimated impact and asking important questions about the challenges of implementing such a large program. The same capacity that allowed Good Thoughts to research this grant, which Good Thoughts expect to save tens of thousands of lives, is also helping Good Thoughts look ahead to newer strategies that could save even more lives in the future. This episode was recorded on August 14, 2026, and represents its best understanding at that time.

MedAccess has received a $580,000 grant from Coefficient Giving to develop access solutions for future tuberculosis vaccines. The funding will support analysis of market barriers that could prevent people in low- and middle-income countries from accessing new TB vaccines and help design innovative finance solutions. Tuberculosis killed an estimated 1.23 million people in 2024, making it the world's leading infectious killer. More than a dozen new TB vaccine candidates are currently in clinical development, with several in late-stage trials. MedAccess will work with global partners to explore how innovative financing and market-shaping approaches can make vaccines more affordable and support rapid introduction in high-burden countries. The organisation co-chairs the Catalytic Instrument Task Force, part of the WHO TB Vaccine Accelerator's Finance and Access Working Group.